Ajith de Silva acknowledges that his treatment of his own dog, a Jack Russell named Judy Princess, may be extreme, in so far at least as it shares his pillow, and that may be, too, a fair description of his attitude to our responsibility as humans to animals in general. But there should be nothing extreme, he insists, about being disturbed by dogs kept in a cage. After all, he says, this is Australia! The name may ring a bell because Ajith de Silva, an Australian radiologist of Sri Lankan birth, has appeared in my column and blog as Australia's sole defender of the Indian myna.
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This time he is distressed that two papillon pups he's been visiting every week in a Kotara pet shop have been in a cage for many weeks. About six weeks, according to an owner of Allans Pet Shoppe at Westfield Kotara, Rebecca Pasovski, and she says that while she'd prefer to have sold them earlier the dogs are happy. Certainly they appear to be clean and healthy, and Dr de Silva is not suggesting they're not. His concern is simply that dogs should not be caged for such a time, that they should be free to run and play. The 20 minutes or so Mrs Pasovski says they're allowed to run around the shop before opening and after closing is poor compensation, he says, for a life in a cage.
Dr de Silva has a well-placed ally, the Sydney parliamentarian and lord mayor, Clover Moore, who three years ago put up a bill that would ban the sale of dogs and cats in pet shops, with one exception. The exception was the sale of rescued dogs and cats, because, she argued, pet shops should not be permitted to sell dogs and cats bred for sale when tens of thousands are killed in council pounds and animal shelters every year for want of a home.
Clover Moore is not place well enough, because two years ago her bill was given short shrift in parliament.
But don't she and Dr de Silva have a fair point? Should dogs and cats be confined to a cage in the name of profit? Should pet shops sell dogs and cats bred for sale when so many are being killed for want of an owner?
